


Demise of the Ritual

by eldvarpa



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Rebirth, Suicide, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27513946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldvarpa/pseuds/eldvarpa
Summary: Curufin finds a way to bring his father back.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	Demise of the Ritual

“I am asking for your help, yes,” Curufin confirmed, a self-assured smirk tugging at the corners his lips.

Eöl responded with a smirk of his own, though his was rather mocking. “I will never help you kinsl –”

Curufin waved a bejewelled hand around. _Golodh_ , Eöl muttered to himself, flaunting their useless jewellery at the slightest opportunity. Curufin wore at least seven rings on a single hand, every gemstone sparkling in the light of Dwarvish torches. 

“I wouldn't expect you to, no,” Curufin said, then lifted a goblet with the same bejewelled hand, sipping daintily at the ale, as if he had been drinking some sort of delicate nectar. 

“So what were you going to ask me?”

Eöl was starting to think that Curufin was purposefully trying to aggravate him, though what he might hope to achieve he couldn't fathom.

“You surely know that Durin is called the Deathless, but that his rebirth does not always happen...naturally.” Curufin caught his gaze with his eyes, shrewd like a cat's eyes. “I've heard of a ritual, and of a weapon they use in said ritual, to bring back their ancestor through the sacrifice of one of his descendants.” 

Curufin paused again and Eöl frowned – that was the sort of information Dwarves only revealed to people they really trusted. The fact that Curufin was one of them still galled Eöl. He couldn't comprehend how the Dwarves could prize Curufin's gems and other trinkets as much as they admired his blades. He didn't expect the conversation to veer off in that direction, either.

“So you want me to make a weapon like that –” 

“– but to bring back the soul of an elf, yes.” 

“Whose?”

“Can you not guess?” Curufin lowered his eyes and set the goblet down on the table. Softly, he said, “to bring my father back.”

“Why would I want to help you do that?”

“You don't need to _want_ to.”

“Make the sword yourself, no? If you so wish to bring your father back,” Eöl taunted. 

“I would, if I could.” Curufin didn't seem offended. It wasn't, perhaps, just a matter of being able to make the sword or not. “You should be flattered that I'm asking your help.”

“And what would I get from it?” Eöl asked.

Curufin shifted on his heat and rested his chin on his hand. “I won't tell Írissë's father and brother that you have her. They have been looking for her. I think you know her as Aredhel.”

The point, to Eöl, was _how_ Curufin knew. The Golodh had to have spies too. Perhaps the twins, down in Estolad, with their emotionless smiles and furtive ways. The other brothers were regularly travelling or hunting or trading, but the twins were seldom to be seen at all. 

“That would hardly be a meaningful bargain even if I did particularly care about Aredhel,” he said, trying to sound entirely unconcerned.

“Maybe. But you are a father, and I think you do care about your son. You don't want him to be dragged into an ugly quarrel with your in-laws. You don't want to lose him.” 

Eöl's gaze darkened. He should have up and left and paid no heed to Curufin's petty threats, but for some reason he stayed. Part of the reason being, of course, that Curufin was right and he did care about Maeglin.

“I understand, you know,” Curufin added. “I am a father too.”

They met again in Gabilgathol a few months later. Eöl unwrapped a sword from a thick leather blanket and showed it to Curufin. 

It was pure white, from the elongated hilt to the tip. 

Eöl had enjoyed the crafting. He had enjoyed learning more about the Dwarves' ritual blade – an axe in their case. He had enjoyed finding out how to replicate its properties. He was definitely proud of his work.

To Curufin, he said only, “it should work.” 

Curufin didn't need to learn about his creative process. Curufin only cared about the finished object. He pressed his thumb against the cutting edge of the blade and dragged it down, his forehead barely creasing as he was cut. In place of blood, a red vapour rose from the wound. 

“It should create a link between the person who uses it and the dead soul, via shared blood.”

“May I use it in your forest?” Curufin asked.

“What?”

“I can't go back to Himald with this, or to any other of my brothers' kingdoms, and I don't want the Dwarves to know what we're up to.”

'What _you_ are up to,' Eöl almost corrected, but he considered. He didn't want Curufin in Nan Elmoth, but part of him did want to see how the sword worked. And he was, also, just a little curious to meet the father Curufin was ready to go to such lengths for. 

“You will use it on yourself?” he couldn't help asking, a little morbidly.

“You were expecting me to sacrifice one of my more disposable relatives?” Curufin took his thumb off the blade. His rent skin mended instantly. “Maybe it would work, but that would be an insult to Father and to myself.”

Eöl found himself nodding. Curufin might be crafty and a single-minded bastard, but he was not a coward.

“Tell me when I can travel to Nan Elmoth.”

“I won't let you stay under my roof.”

Curufin chuckled. “I don't need to.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Eöl asked.

Curufin had arrived in Nan Elmoth at sundown the previous day, and had spent the night out in the forest. Eöl's workshop was quiet the following afternoon, and almost empty. He had dismissed the people who usually worked with him, save his main assistant. He had not been able to send Maeglin away. Maeglin hovered behind Eöl, watching while Curufin got ready. Maybe his presence explained why Eöl suddenly felt so queasy about what was about to happen.

“My father deserves a second chance and the Valar will never give it to him,” Curufin said.

“What about your son?” Eöl asked, noticing the way Maeglin's face scrunched up and the way Maeglin's gaze shifted from Curufin to him. 

For the first time, Curufin seemed to waver. His eyes filled with sadness and he had to close them for a moment. “He will understand,” he murmured. “Father will look after him.”

Eöl laid the sword on the table in front of him. It barely made a sound.

Curufin took off his tunic and shirt and undershirt, folded them neatly and put them in his bag. He dropped his rings, and his earrings and his necklace in the same bag too. Then he took his boots off and his socks, arranging them next to the bag. He covered everything with his mantle, except for a pair of rolled up sheets of parchment sealed with Curufin's emblem. “Just give the letter to my father. Don't let him see the rest, please,” he told Eöl as he gathered his hair and rolled it up into a bun that he secured to the top of his head. 

When he was ready, he grabbed the sword. 

At that same instant, a peal of thunder boomed outside, and a thick rain started falling, breaking easily through the canopy of tree tops. 

Maeglin flinched. 

Curufin smiled at him.

“Do you want me to go far?” he asked Eöl.

Eöl shook his head. 

Holding the sword by the blade, Curufin walked out under the downpour. His bare feet sank in the rapidly softening ground. He stopped at a distance from the workshop and knelt. 

Eöl held his breath. 

Maeglin came to stand next to him. 

Maeglin's own uneasiness prickled Eöl's skin.

Curufin embedded the tip of the sword in the mud, deep enough that it wouldn't slip out. He held onto the hilt with his right hand and tested its stability. Satisfied, he bent forward, exposing his bare neck. He inched the sword towards his neck and pressed his neck to the blade at the same time, with no hesitation.

The sword cut his skin open easily, and as easily dug into it. Curufin's knuckles turned white as he kept pushing the blade in. A cloud of vapour rose from the cut, but Eöl saw clearly how the sword reached the bone and sliced through it without the slightest hitch, and he caught the instant a hand reached out from the red vapour, which was also the instant Curufin's head rolled off of his body. 

The rest of Curufin's body dissolved into mist, and the sword fell into the mud. 

The red cloud vanished too and there stood another man, taller than Curufin, but with the same hair and the same build.

Fëanor looked up and around, turned his palms upwards to the rain as if it was something he saw for the first time. He stood there for a while, just filling his lungs with air.

And then he looked down. 

His scream when he saw his son's severed head rivalled the thunder overhead.

He fell to his knees, screaming, and picked Curufin's head up.

Eöl tried to look away, but couldn't. That was not how it was supposed to go. Curufin's body should have been consumed whole. _This was wrong_. What he was seeing was horribly wrong. Eöl was a father too and what he was witnessing almost made him retch. Maeglin clung to his arm. Eöl winced. Part of him was glad that Maeglin was not that attached to him. He was glad that Maeglin would never do something like that for him, and yet what if he was wrong and Maeglin loved him more than he was able to tell. 

Eöl turned to him and wanted to tell him never to do something like that, but Maeglin buried himself in his chest. He was shaking. Eöl wrapped one arm around him.

Perhaps alerted by the screams, Aredhel came running through the rain from their house. She gasped and stopped in her tracks when she saw Fëanor. She saw the sword and the head too, and understood whatever Fëanor was screaming.

She looked up at Eöl for a moment, blinking against the rain, then knelt in front of Fëanor. “Uncle...”

Looking down she froze again. Later, Eöl would see too: there was a smile on Curufin's face.

Fëanor talked to her, in yelps and sobs. 

(“I heard his voice. He was calling to me and I went. I didn't know – ...I couldn't imagine...”)

Aredhel hugged him, her whole body shaking with the force of her uncle's sobs.

She too sounded like she was crying when she looked at Eöl again.

“Call his other sons,” she shouted over the rain, “the twins.”

She didn't need to specify that. Curufin had been clear not to involve either his older brother or his son, at first. Eöl had already made arrangements for his assistant to put in a brief appearance in Estolad and hand Amrod and Amras their brother's possessions, and now he only had to nod at the woman. 

His eyes fell on the letter Curufin had left for Celebrimbor in the process. 

He hugged Maeglin with both arms and closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> (Yes, I did take liberties with the reason re:why Durin is called the Deathless)


End file.
